Broken, Together
by Chronic Guardian
Summary: [Days of the City/Twelve Zero Zero] In which a Ghost runs into a girl who can channel him, and they talk about things they've lost. Companion piece to Afterlife Burnout. T for language and iffy theology.


**Broken, Together**

By Chronic Guardian

**Based on Characters and Events from the Days of the City Novel: Twelve Zero Zero  
**

"Okay," I breathe in, but considering I don't have physical lungs it's more out of habit than necessity. I don't smell the Parasite's garbage stink in the air, so I guess we're in the clear. Taking one final whiff of the surroundings just to be sure, I nod and turn to my decidedly more corporeal companion. "I think we lost 'em… You okay kid?"

The young lady, a pretty little redhead with sharp eyes and round cheeks, doubles over onto the park grass. She's something different, not your usual churchyard visitor when there's not a funeral going on—by which I mean, not a parishioner or rebellious teenager—and whatever she's carrying in her backpack just reeks of someone else's memories. Her hair's in her face at this point, but she's shaking like an autumn leaf so it's safe to say she's not your traditional definition of 'okay'. Still, she's alive. And if she's alive, then she can channel.

I can't waste this shot.

I do my best to put on a smile and come down to put a hand on her shoulder. "You're new to all this, huh? Well don't you worry. Ol' Jazz has ya now. You're gonna be alright."

She gives off the broken gasp of a sob before looking up, and I do my best not to recoil from her tear-streaked face. "Jazz?" she asks. "What—?"

"Ah, right, introductions," I bump my forehead with my hand before offering it to her along with the run-down. "You'll hafta forgive my rudeness. Jasper Lewis, friends call me Jazz. I'm a Tracer, sorry if you were hoping for something like a Chrono Specter, but you get the care and feeding down and I still do alright for ya. My game's in the waterworks and telekinesis department. You?"

Apparently, it's still a little much for her. Maybe this is her first encounter? Naw, doesn't seem likely. If she can see into the Absolute then she's got to have seen _something_ before me.

"You're… dead."

Or not.

"Huh? Oh! Right, missed that part, didn't I? Lemme start over: Hi, Jasper Lewis: went down October fourth, nineteen fifty eight due to mysterious causes. Probably slipped on a banana peel for all the difference it makes. I'm a Tracer and all that other junk. That better for ya?"

"Oh my god…" she mumbles. Her eyes are wide as wire spools and she's whiter than a sand dollar, but she doesn't look likely to faint anymore, so that's good. "You're really dead," she says again. "Ghosts are real. You're friggin'—"

"Okay, sorry, back up," I put a finger through her lips and the shock is enough to silence her. "Here I was thinkin' you'd already made your maiden voyage; didn't realize you were this green to the Absolute. You wanna find a bench or somethin'? We got a lotta ground to cover."

"I—" she blinks and splutters and finally catches her balance with a glare. "I knew it was a thing," she insists, like she's deflecting an insult. "I just… didn't expect to see any others. Like, I only thought it'd be people I knew?"

"Any other…? Oh!" Finally, the insinuation hits me. "Other Ghosts! Right, hah. So _that's_ how you got your toes into the Absolute: someone went out and did a haunting. Geez Louise, talk about a grudge that won't die!"

The young lady's eyes take on a glint that would probably be enhancing my swiss cheese impression if I still had a body to burn through.

"...What, too soon?"

"This is all 'too soon," she mutters back. "Tania was… She was _here_. She was back. I heard her voice from some creepy-ass kid who broke into my house. I have to find her."

"Oooh." So this 'Tania' has an accomplice to channel her. Well, this complicates things. "That is… really not great."

Mainly in that it means I have one more piece on the board to keep track of, but it's still worth having a partner to channel with.

"Really 'not great'?!" my newest acquaintance doesn't seem to appreciate my soft wording as I try to sort out her complex feelings regarding her haunter. "It ruined my life! Do you have any idea what I'm going through? To think you'll never get to tell someone how much they meant to you, only for them to show up and just flip you off? Now I can't get her out of my head and everyone I know thinks I'm crazy!"

She ends in a scream, tearing up a tuft of grass and chucking it through my stomach. I swallow. At least she isn't shy with the contextual details.

"Can't say I remember going through the exact circumstance, no," I say slowly. Obviously, she's more than a little overwhelmed, but if anyone notices her talking to me it's not gonna do much for the whole 'crazy' image. Part of my dumb brain (Mind? Never got a straight answer on where I do my thinking these days) suggests lightening the atmosphere and I jump on the deal without waiting for a second opinion.

"...'Course, I don't remember much of anything before the churchyard. I think there mighta been a lady involved? Definitely some stuff down on the riverside loading dock. But the kinda humdinger you're talkin? Sorry, ain't no match that I can see. Go fish, Sweetcheeks?"

On the plus side, 'Sweetcheeks' now has got the blood circulation in her face back to beyond-healthy levels. "My name is Alison, bub," she grits out. "Not 'Sweetcheeks'."

"Ah, right, Alison," I say, taking her hostility in stride. She probably doesn't know I've anchored myself to the bottle strapped outside her backpack just yet, so the most she'll try to give me is a bloody nose. If she went after my medium then I'd really be screwed. Still, I want to stay on good terms with this girl; she could be my ticket out of here.

"Yeah, you looked like an Alison," I nod and stroke my mustache. If we're counting the advantages to being dead, not having to shave for the last half-a-century does make the list for me. "Strong, sweet, determined… yeah, I can see it."

"You know, you can go screw yourself now."

"Whoa, easy," I throw up my hands and float a couple inches back. Not the most polite response to 'I just saved your life like a real gentleman', but I've seen worse… "Look, I'm sorry, alright? Maybe we can help eachother out. You said you're lookin' for a girl, right? Tania? Well, maybe I can scratch your back on that one."

Alison shoots me a stern look, but I don't hear a 'no' so I keep going. Even if this is gonna be a hard sell, I'll hold out if it means a consensual channeler.

"See, remember when I said I was a Tracer? That's a type of Ghost formed when somebody dies looking for something. That means I got a nose like a bloodhound and eyes a hawk can only dream of. Besides, you wanna find Tania without turning into Malevolent munchies, right? For that, you might want a friendly neighborhood spook at your back."

I end the pitch with a smile that probably looks roguish, like the all the old movie stars used to give. It's been a hot minute since I last had to be charming, so my technique's probably rusty as hell. Still, I hold the position and hope for the best. If Alison doesn't take me with her, then it's right back to wasting away for me.

The moment stretches and I hold my breath with puffing cheeks. I'm tempted to appeal to her nurturing feminine sensitivities, but something about Alison tells me she's fresh out of pity for a tatterdemalion stooge like me. Better to stick with how useful I'm gonna be to her and save the vice versa for later.

"...You think you can find her?" she finally says, giving me a skeptical smolder. "If I give you a scent or something, you can lead me to Tania?"

"Can I? Heh! Is the Dodgers from Brooklyn?"

Alison's bland look tells me she isn't much of a Dodgers fan. Either that, or she doesn't follow the great American pastime, but I'm not about to accuse a prospective partner of any such hogwash.

Clearing my throat, I try again.

"I mean… yeah, I'm game if you are. Why, you got a counter offer?"

Alison rolls her eyes and looks away towards the tress lining the other side of the park. My once-in-an-afterlifetime chance at finally completing my search is slipping through my grubby fingers like a bar of wet soap.

Maybe I should just play stowaway in the bottle and hope she doesn't get thirsty.

"What's your angle, Jazz?" she mutters, still studying the treeline. "What do you get out of this?"

"Angle?" I guffaw and hope it doesn't sound too guilty. "I don't got an angle."

She purses her lips and shakes her head. "Everyone has an angle."

I shrug, torn between making something up or just doubling down. It's not like I plan on possessing her, but I've got an uncomfortable hunch building up that she's not interested in sharing any longer than necessary. Maybe that's just me projecting, though. I dunno. It certainly sounds like something _I _would do.

But if I don't make this work, I'm not gonna be doing much of anything.

"Like I said, I'm lookin' for someone," I say, fessing up in the most general sense possible. "If we don't find 'em, that's fine. But in the meantime, we might as well team up and double our chances, right?"

Alison searches my eyes with a serious expression. I can feel her probing the surface of my facade, trying to follow my words to the roots to see what I really mean.

I stare back. Truth is, I'd like to know myself.

"You give me one damn reason to doubt you and you're dead," she says at last, pointing a finger up under my chin. "You understand? One reason."

I ignore the obvious loophole of my technical livelihood and opt for a quiet smile.

"Trust me Alison. I understand."

She gives me one last good, hard look, before she nods and pulls away. "Okay, good," she breathes, and suddenly all her determination melts into shivering relief. "Good… then… do me a favor?"

"Whatever ya say, Missy."

"Don't try to understand too hard."

"...Fair enough."

I follow her gaze off into the trees as she slowly gets up. It's quiet, and I've only got the faintest Idea where we're going from here. As we head off into the night, looking for shelter, Alison keeps her distance.

But we still move together, so we're not alone. For now, that's enough.

**[End]**

Author's Note:

Heeey, so, look at me posting not a TSoS thing during TSoS. Why did this happen? Well, the short version is that I wanted to tighten focus on the piece I _was_ writing for TSoS, but the contextual framing was getting wonky and I didn't want to just drop the reader into the midst of "how the heck did we get into this AU?" land. Ergo, I took the opening sequence and turned into an introductory standalone.

All that said, please look forward to **0111-Afterlife Burnout **later this weekend and also please thank aspiring author Paige K Duffy for writing the source material this is fan fiction of.

See you for the after party!

-CG


End file.
